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DO IT TOGETHER!
co-edited by CHRISTIN PERSSON W I L L I A M DAV I S EMMA ESTBORN
TOOLS FOR COLL A BOR AT ION
HOW TO USE THIS ISSUE Each article ends with a TOOLBOX , these pages have black borders, so are easy to spot when flicking through. In this interactive PDF format, links between pages and to external websites are recognized with THIS COLOUR . We asked member companies of Media Evolution "what does collaboration mean to you?", their replies are scattered throughout this issue, marked by this symbol:
CONTENTS 8
EDITORIAL
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PA RT IC I PATORY SPAC E-E X PLOR AT ION a c on v e r s at ion w it h A R I E L WA L DM A N
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O R G A N I Z AT I O N F R O M A B I R D ' S E Y E V I E W by HENRIK CHALLIS
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UNCONVENTIONAL a conversation w it h RU T H DA N IEL
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T H E COL L A B OR AT I V E T U R N a conversation with BO REIMER & JONAS LÖWGR EN
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COL L A B OR AT ION: T H E N E W WAY S OF WOR K I NG I T final note by EMMA ESTBORN
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FLOCKS OF S TA R L I N G S , S PAC E E X P L O R AT IO N , H A S H TAG S : T H E C U LT U R E S O F CO L L A B O R AT IO N 8
Why have we chosen to talk about collaboration in this issue? This is #10 of Media Evolution’s publication series, and to mark this moment we’re addressing a recurring theme of ours: collaboration. The way we work is shifting, a fundamental 9
change is altering how we approach working together in different constellations. Most of us that grew up in the western world lived in democratic states, where business and social organization were widely understood as ‘top-down’ systems: the arrangement of knowledge or expertise in a certain field asserting power over decision making, the order of individuals typically resembling a pyramid-like structure. These notions have collapsed quite spectacularly in recent years, with clear examples ranging from the uprisings of the Arab spring, to the success of crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter: the power of people doing it together is back on the agenda. So how to organize this critical mass? That is what this publication is all about: how the leverage of new digital forms of collaborating are producing innovative, exciting results that improve how we live. We have collected five wide-ranging examples that challenge traditional organizational practices, to form a contemporary snapshot of the methods to collaborate in the media industries. From a discussion with Ariel Waldman on Spacehack events – democratizing space-exploration for all, to Ruth Daniel explaining how Fora do Eixo, a Brazilian music festival have produced their own economic reward system within a capitalist framework. Each article ends with a toolbox, offering the reader strategic take-aways on how forms of collaboration can help them in their own pursuits.
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Collaboration is a way of working around the gap between knowledge and business, what we know and how we do it. It’s a method that people have practiced in a variety of contexts, enabling us to work in new and different ways, generating innovative outputs. The more practice you get, the better you get: having practiced, observed and discussed the various angles of this phenomena over the previous nine Media Evolution publications, we mark the tenth with a snapshot of what it means right now, why its heading that way, how it is already affecting everything we do, who’s doing it, how we do it and why we should all do it more often.
Together we shape the future with new ways of working it! Christin Persson William Davis Emma Estborn
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" I N S PAC E E X P L O R AT IO N YOU N E E D FA S H IO N D E S IG N E R S , W E B DEV ELOPERS, MINING EXPERTS" a conversation with Ariel Waldman Founder of Spacehack.org
previous page: The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble / NASA (source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html)
Pause, and think of the movie Armageddon for a second. A bunch of cowboy oil-drillers invent a drill head for asteroids. They are then sent out into deep space together with trained astronauts to save the earth. Fiction, yes, but probably the best example of crossbusiness innovation in the history of film. 15
Serendipity landed graphic designer and newborn space geek Ariel Waldman a job at Nasa's CoLab Program. When she left she started a mission of her own, deciding to open up space exploration to everyone...
"In 2008 or so I was watching this documentary at home about Nasa and the Apollo missions and I thought it was really inspiring. After watching it I randomly decided to send someone at Nasa an email that I wanted to work for them. They serendipitously created a job description for someone like me, and I (very randomly) got a job at Nasa! It changed my perspective on everything, making me realize that people from all kinds of backgrounds can actively contribute to space exploration in meaningful ways. When I left Nasa I spent two weeks building Spacehack.org to try and help people figure out ways to contribute to space exploration.
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I'm quite surprised at how much people like it: I built it for fun, and figured people might like it for a few weeks and then maybe they would forget about it. But it's coming up on five years since I built Spacehack, and people still react to it really positively." In 2011, Ariel Waldman held a keynote at the Open Source Convention about 1969, the year of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. That same year, the first message was sent over ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). Since then the Internet has reached approximately two billion people, whilst only five hundred people have been in space. "I think something happened with ARPANET and the Internet. It was originally designed for physicists to use, but something happened where it became massively accessible and grew and grew. Unfortunately space exploration became a top down thing. It wasn't distributed. It wasn't something that anyone could take up in their own time. There was a lot of control placed on space exploration, probably due to the fact that it was being used as a political tool between the US and Russia; more war-like reasons for utilizing space exploration. It's interesting to me that in 1969 you really have the birth of two inarguably historical events, and one has now affected two billion people. You are able to observe the changes and turning points of each of those over time and see where space exploration in a sense is lacking. I'm not sure if we can get to space exploration being accessible to two billion people but we certainly should have got a lot further than five hundred." So, how do we do it? How can space exploration happen quicker and more successfully by us all doing it together?
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I think the science industry isn't really aware of how much they could benefit from having people without a scientific background helping. Not in the sense of necessarily 'citizen science', but in space exploration you need fashion designers, web developers, people who are mining experts. I think for a long time, when the space industry need help from someone with a specific type of expertise, they look within their own circles for someone who has the expertise – as opposed to reaching out to people who live and breath a different career and having them help them with their problems. I think grouping people with diverse skill-sets means getting things done faster, a lot more efficiently. During its five years, what initiatives have been created through Spacehack? Spacehack is always interesting, I feel like I never know the full story of how it impacts people because I designed it so that people would come to it, find something interesting, and never visit it again because they found something through it. There are a lot of stories that I feel I'm not aware of. I've heard of groups of people in the Middle East getting a 'Tubesat' kit, which is a small satellite kit, which is exciting. I've heard of people that have participated in robot competitions as a process for healing their depression, which is great. Just looking at the types of projects over time that has come out and how they've been successful is just amazing: there was once a project about creating better algorithms for searching for dark matter. I think one of the best came from a glaciologist who took an algorithm he uses every day to detect glaciers on satellite imagery. He applied that to dark matter and it worked out really well. That's what I love, and again it's about including everyone. Spacehack
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is mostly designed for people without a formal scientific background, but getting scientists involved from differing fields and getting them involved in space exploration is wonderful. Do you actively facilitate these meetings or do people just find each other through Spacehack? I do a lot of work to get people to feel that they're empowered and encouraged to discover more in space exploration. There are a lot of good open data sets and open source material that I often direct people to. Open data is great because it allows people to take a raw resource and be very creative with it. My push to people is always to really do something with the data, a constant frustration is that there is a lot of open science data out there, but getting people to do interesting things with that data and making that more accessible is much slower. There is asteroid data or Voyager data, all types of things, and there are also really amazing ways in which people have made data more accessible, either through bringing things that are otherwise invisible, like asteroids passing by the earth into more visible realms, or doing really interesting things like Galaxy Zoo has done. They've taken all the galaxy data and put an interface around it, so that a lot of people can go and classify and investigate these different galaxies that we have data for. Those projects are interesting because they have taken open data that otherwise wasn't very accessible to many people, and made it accessible to hundreds of thousands of people by just designing an interface around it, making it easily digestible for people who aren't astrophysicists. What kinds of international collaborations are currently
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happening through Spacehack? There are all types of things. Last year I traveled to Kenya for a science hack day, we had a particle physicist from Chicago skyping in to space hackers in Kenya, collaborating over the course of a weekend to create a particle physics data visualization. Even though they weren't able to physically meet, they worked together across huge distances. In this example, the physicist and the hackers were able to create refined particle physics data visualizations. Are you still in contact with Nasa? Do you talk to them frequently about this? Yes, I do. I feel like I've been very fortunate to have a good relationship with people at Nasa. I'm often in disbelief about it, because I have phone calls from different people at Nasa every other week just to talk through different ideas. I feel that my twelve year old self would think that was really cool. But yes, I still talk to them about how to open up space exploration further and how to empower people to be able to do space exploration related contributions with or without their help and how they can navigate that. Nasa has progressed over the last five years. When I first came into Nasa, social media was still very uncertain and they weren't fully embracing it, whereas now they are really embracing social media and engaging people. Their largest challenge is how to engage people who don't already self identify as a space geek. Prior to working at Nasa I didn't identify myself as a space geek! The thing that I want to see Nasa get good at is to break past their eco-chamber and be able to reach out to people who otherwise don't think about space exploration much, but if they
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had the chance to do something space related, would find it really cool – that's exactly the position that I was in. We were talking earlier about how far we've come with the Internet compared to space exploration. Do you have a timeframe, at what rate is space exploration evolving and how is it getting faster through what you and your friends around the world are doing? In regards to space exploration being more accessible in general, in the next ten years there's going to be a 'citizen science renaissance'. Not just in space exploration, but also in other areas of science. In the biotech industry for example we're seeing biohack spaces being formed. In space exploration you're seeing not only human space life becoming something that people are aiming to make more accessible – you're also seeing space information being much more widely distributed. I think that it's something with all the sciences combined there are a lot of efforts from all different sides combined to make it more accessible, and once it's accessible to actually empower people to make real contributions. At least as I've been watching it, I think it's on a ten-year scale something that people feel they can contribute to, with or without a science background. From space exploration to bio-tech to neuro-tech, just by making scientific data available to contribute to, you're going to get really interesting mashups of ideas and collaborations. Ways of doing things that otherwise wouldn't have come out if it weren’t as accessible.
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ARIEL WALDMAN'S Ariel Waldman is speaking about what we can accomplish when we open up tools for all of us to use at The Conference taking place at Media Evolution, summer 2013.
Read more:Â Ariel Waldman Spacehack.org Nasa Data Science Hack Day Galaxy Zoo Ariel Waldman @ The Conference 2013
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S PAC E H AC K T O O L B O X SCIENCE HACK DAY "It has an open set of instructions for how to organize a science hack day in your own city and it's not an organization. Anyone can do it and own it as much as they want. I think by actually organizing that in whatever city you live in, that actually can act as such a strong and powerful catalyst for getting different people together in the same physical space." SPACEHACK.ORG "There are a lot of really cool projects right now; anything from robotics competitions to discovering new exo-planets. DATA.NASA.GOV "If you are a web developer, or someone who is playing with data, this is a great resource with a huge directory of open data that Nasa has to play with.
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Translation: Excitement in collaboration is about not playing it safe, it is about actively seeking away from homogenous structures and towards new group constellations.
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EMERGENCE: O R G A N I Z AT IO N T H E O R Y F R OM A BIRD'S EYE VIEW
by Henrik Challis Consultant, Plan B (translated by William Davis)
previous page: Airborne Flocks of Blue Geese and Snow Geese Stop at the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City, Missouri, 1974. Photo: Patricia D. Duncan (source: arcweb.archives.gov / The U.S. National Archives)
Can we let organizations create themselves? Can they emerge and reemerge as a product of our work? An organization is not a static form, it is a constantly evolving process.
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We live in a time when are all in contact; we can communicate with one another dynamically, our relationships continually transforming. This creates new demands on how we organize ourselves and on how we lead. Most existing management philosophies take their starting points in the certainty that the one knows – within reason – what shall happen next, whilst a few in the organization have the strategic clarity to plan the objectives, culture and structure. Sources of inspiration are often mechanical similes and metaphors. Concepts such as governance, well-oiled processes, gears and implementation are the dominant language.
Lesser Sandhill Cranes, Lillian Annette Rowe Bird Sanctuary at Grand Island, Nebraska, 1975. Photo: Patricia D. Duncan (source: arcweb.archives.gov / The U.S. National Archives)
PIONEERS
At the same time, new management systems are being developed by pioneers in their field. Systems that are based on the transformation and cyclical perspectives. Here we see a completely different concept, perhaps creating a new language, often with english words. Management theories like ‘Agile Development’ (1), and its values ‘adaptability’, ‘transparency’,
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‘simplicity’ and ‘unity’ are examples. Or perhaps ‘Skunkworks’, in english defined as ‘a small team taken out of their normal working environment and given exceptional freedom from their organization’s standard management constraints’ (2). A concept that builds on the realization that existing supervisory systems limit development and need to be removed in order to bring a more powerful ‘disruptive innovation’ (3). To distinguish between the different management systems and their conceptual worlds, it might be necessary to visualize them (see diagram on next spread). Using this model we can see that our western notions of leadership and organization have evolved over time. From user control, via performance management and value-based management to leading by collaboration. The model is developed on the basis of Shimon L. Dolan and Salvador Garcia’s thoughts (4). MBI (Management By Instructions), MBO (Management By Objectives) and MBV (Management By Values) come from the original model, whilst MBC (Management By Collaboration) is Plan B’s body (5). Many can probably recognize the different management systems of most major organizations as we live amongst them in parallel.
THE RATIONAL & THE INTUITIVE
Already in 1998 Kevin Kelly, executive editor of Wired magazine wrote the prospects for organizing in the Internet age (6) as a tension between two forces: Clockware and Swarmware. Clockware as the rational, vertical and structured, Swarmware as the intuitive, fast and fleeting. As the clock with its
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ORGANIZATION • Org. around customer • Patching • Centre Formations
• • • •
Community Self-operating Team Network / Project Alliances
• Concerns • Business Area • Unit
• "Mill" • Administrations • Firms
G IN K I A M MB
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BO
Management By Instruction
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M
BI
1950
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LI L O TR BO ON M
NG
1980
Management By Objectives
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RN
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IO T A R E BC C - M O
CULTURE
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G IN BV
• • • •
Entrepreneurship Innovation Discipline Ethics
• • • •
Visionary Meaningful Flexible / Learning Relation
• Professionalism • Customer Orientation • Role Clarity
• Rule Control • Hierarchy • Conscientiousness
Management By Values
BC
2020
M
M
BV
1990
Management By Collaboration
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continuity and precision in combined with dynamics like a flock of birds, fluid, synchronized. Kevin Kelly then was a pioneer of organizations, and received much inspiration from the complex, natural and adaptive forms of organization that we see in ecosystems. Take a flock of birds (7) and its fantastic ability to change form whilst at the same time maintain its structure, and in short, survive. Which principles are behind this organization? (8) Who leads and who follows? In studies of bird flocking behavior, we can see that the organization seems to arise from simple interactions between members, and not from a specific leader or group of. There is an emerging order, not an implementation but rather a phenomenon. The phenomenon emerges depending on the degree of connection between its parts. The better parts can communicate with each other, the more efficient the organizing process appears to be. This phenomenon of emerging order between parts is called ‘emergence’. (9) Part of the current research looks for the principles that seems to permeate these parts, allowing emergence. The idea is that if you can find these principles, perhaps one can create emergence. Here the researchers had attached transmitters to birds of the flock, with the help of a positioning system encoded by the birds’ behavior in order to interpret findings. This work has resulted in the identification of a set of principles with which one can simulate a flock of birds in a virtual environment.
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We should note that there is a relative lack of knowledge in this area; in virtual simulations one can see that the organizational process using the identified principles solidifies in a forever repeating loop if one lets the simulation run for long enough. This being the algorithm that ensures constant change. Allowing the likeness with bird flocking behavior, emergence could be followed as a theory by our organizations. If we are in consensus on these four components, whilst still creating room for organizing amongst ourselves, maybe we can build frameworks with the flexibility and beauty of the bird flock. Assuming that we are able to communicate as effectively as birds, of course!
NOTES:
1 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Agile_Software_ Development_methodology.svg 2 http://www.economist.com/node/11993055 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation 4 http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/papers/downloads/486.pdf 5 http://www.planb.se/koll-som-i-kollaboration/ 6 http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch2-f.html 7 http://vimeo.com/58291553 8 http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/manica/ms/2012_ King_ and_Sumpter_Curr_ Biol.pdf 9 http://www.planb.se/ emergence-%E2%80%93-complexity-from-simplicity-1-of-2/
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HENRIK CHALLIS'S
The principles that permeate this flock behaviour are currently believed to be:
• HOLDING TOGETHER • KEEPING RELATIVE DISTANCE • FINDING FOOD • AVOIDING THREATS
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EMERGENCE TOOLBOX So if we try to translate these principles into human organizations, we’re perhaps not far from a 'theory of emergence'. What activities work for us to survive? Of course we must stick together, keep distance, find food, avoid threats. Perhaps the principles can be directly reflected in the following activity:
• VISION
Progress perceived cohesively
• MISSION
A common goal binding all together
• OUTCOMES
The ability to achieve and benefit from them
• VALUES
An ethical perspective that links individuals
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Translation: Collaboration... when my musings and ideas collide with others' and lead to something fun, good and plentiful for many.
UNCO N V E N T IO N A L
a conversation with Ruth Daniel Co-Founder of Un-Convention
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How can alternative economies create value, without profit margins motivating the end result? We talk to Ruth Daniel about how the music industry and festivals can operate better when we collectivize our actions. 41
A Manchester born creative entrepreneur, Ruth was previously a musician (playing with cultManchester band The Fall for a short time) and founder and of Manchester based independent record label; Fat Northerner Records (2003 – 2010). She is now co-founder and Director of Un-Convention, a global grassroots music event and community with presence in 22 countries. We caught Ruth for a Skype-session about her visions and a discussion about how Swedish and international music-festivals shall need to innovate themselves in a time when many of them are going under. 

 So first off the idea behind Un-Convention... what was your vision? I think the vision has changed over the years... Initially it was about responding to the changes in the music industry at a time when other music industry events were not. As digital impacted the industry, many of the established organizations and companies failed to adapt to the changes it prompted. Many mainstream music events talked about the death of the music industry, however, we saw amazing opportunity for the grassroots and independent sector to be empowered and do more for themselves in a way they couldn't before digital: distribution of products online; platforms to directly connect with their fan-bases; alternative media (bloggers etc).
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The vision of Un-Convention was to provide a discussion forum to talk about the future of music in a way that helped grassroots and independent musicians and infrastructure become empowered, and essentially build sustainable careers in this new landscape – providing tools to do this. This vision was 4 years ago, and our tagline was 'Do it Together' – the promotion of working together to enhance the indie sector. Then we went international and began to work in more marginalized communities, where music meant something very different than to commercial ends; we began to see alternative economic models and ways of organizing the infrastructure. Our vision now is to try to change the (music) world, to offer more opportunities for grassroots and independent musicians, especially those where there are the least opportunities. Mobilizing these incredible models and ideas to produce open source and free source digital tools that mobilize bands in a way that has not been done before.
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You will speak about this at The Conference 2013 in August, how alternative economies can be created without having economic gain as the driver. How does that work in practice? Yes, we have been inspired by a revolutionary organization in Brazil called 'Fora Do Eixo', an organization that organizes the music infrastructure across Brazil, run by 2,000 young people in 200 cities. They have their own bank and their own currency. They mobilize 33,000 bands per year – across 6,000 festivals, generating $44million per year for the independent music sector.
They have created a system within a capitalist framework that operates autonomously, and is totally sustainable. They are in turn able to have huge political influence. The system works on the basis of reward for work/services through their own currency and rewards the bands in this way.
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Noite Fora do Eixo, Belo Horizonte, 03/05/2013 photo: Maria Objetiva (Flickr Commons / CC BY-SA)
We are working to develop and bring this system to the UK and beyond (30 countries in total), and are developing new digital tools to do this. We call it 'Off Axis', which is the translation of Fora Do Eixo. All the people within these networks have not got an economic driver at the head of what they do. It's about collective working, and in places like Brazil (where Fora comes from), this is standard practice. We are trying to introduce this way of working and thinking in the UK, as it is more sustainable given the economic climate, and helps empower those within this system. How is it being received? How far have you come? So we are currently developing the digital tools and it will be launched in September, but the response from our partners (venues, tastemakers, bands, promoters, festivals) has been overwhelming. Everyone is really excited about the prospect of this system.
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Yes, I emailed you about festivals specifically, we saw the musicindustry "dying" and now media and a lot of people are talking about the death of festivals. What's your view on that? I think the festival market is saturated. We have 600 festivals a year in the UK alone. It's a highly competitive place with an ever-decreasing pool of headline acts. I think that the smaller, niche festivals will survive – those doing things differently. I think with a shrinking economy, the first thing people stop spending money on when they have to cut back is entertainment. However I don't think the festival market is dying. I was at Primavera Sound last weekend, and I have never seen such a booming and growing event year on year. I think that looking at different models to deliver festivals in the future shall be necessary. More collective models, free festival models and so on will become more popular. The commercialization of festivals has become standard, and I think we may revert back to the more 'grassroots' or underground free events, to counter this commercial festival culture. Indeed, create festivals with values other than commercial ones. Make money from other things? Yeah for sure, I think festival audiences are tired of the relentless sponsorship and branding, which changes the festival experience. Perhaps crowd funded events, or those organized in a more 'old-school' style will come back. I see it as having been a bit of an arms race... sort of USSR vs. USA but with ideal festival organizers suddenly having to compete with commercial giants, because they felt they had to. The key-question might be - how do we take the competition out of it
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and get people to see how collaboration can change things? Yes – well I think it depends on why you want to organize a festival in the first place. Is it to create a commercial entity? This is why most festivals are currently being started, but of course this wasn't why festivals like Glastonbury were started 30 years ago. It was about creating a space to have a great time and listen and experience great music. Now when I see the collectives in Brazil staging festivals in the centre of Sao Paulo for 40,000 people for free, with no money, the best production and the biggest acts playing it reminds me of why festivals used to happen: without commercial ends, moreover to create something incredible by working together. We've talked about reshaping the economy of the music community and industry, so how do you intend to take this to next level... changing the world? It's really about providing infrastructure and opportunity for those with the least. The best music happens at the margins. So we want to provide more exposure, opportunity and infrastructure for this to thrive. We are doing this by creating digital tools, which we will share between all the networks we are connected to across the world that will enable the mobility of bands, ideas and best practice. We set up cooperatives in places like Uganda, where there is little or no music infrastructure. We provide opportunities for exposure of artists and music from lesser-known places around the world. For us, if we can do this then we can help change the world, through the empowerment of people, communities and organizations to do more for themselves, creating their own autonomous systems and economic models.
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R U T H D A N I E L' S Ruth Daniel's talk Do It Together happens at The Conference, Media Evolution, summer 2013.
Read more:Â Unconvention Hub Fora Do Eixo
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UNCONVENTION TOOLBOX • SHARED ETHOS • COLLECTIVE MENTALITY • DO IT TOGETHER attitude • GREAT COMMUNICATION and DEMOCRATIC SELECTION OF IDEAS • the POWER THAT YOU HAVE WHEN YOU WORK TOGETHER, rather than competing as an isolated individual
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THE CO L L A B O R AT I V E TURN
a conversation between Jonas Lรถwgren, Bo Reimer and Christin Persson
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Bo Reimer and Jonas Löwgren discuss with Christin Persson the pitfalls and potentials of a move from ‘social’ or ‘new’ media toward the more action oriented ‘Collaborative Media’, against the backdrop of their book of the same name on MIT Press. 51
WHAT IS ‘COLLABORATIVE MEDIA’? Christin: So if we just plunge into the concept of ‘collaborative media’ – can you explain it to me? Jonas: Well, collaborative media are the media where people basically do things together. To some degree it's in contrast to older notions of media where you have a producer producing something that a large number of people consume in a certain form. Collaborative media is different in that it is created by a large number of people participating, collaborating, providing different bits – not only content but actually also what we call 'design of the infrastructure'. Bo: That's a major part of our book: many people are saying now that people are much more involved in producing media content, but our point is actually that there is a step before that regarding the design of the whole infrastructure. That today people can also take part through simple technology – which is one of the new things that we're trying to say in the book. Jonas: Ideas of prosumers and produsage and those types of concepts have been around for at least ten years now, however most of those thinkers have taken the infrastructure for granted, and our point is that that infrastructure is not to be taken for granted anymore. Not only before a new media product is being launched but during it's lifetime. People add components. People mash-up different components to create new ones. People change the actual technology that used to be the channel; "I speak here, it comes out there." – it's not like that anymore.
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There's a fairly simple example that might explain this to some degree. If you think about Twitter, when Twitter launched there was no such thing as a hashtag. The use of it was invented by a user roughly nine months or so after launch. This guy realized that we need a way to structure and sort this flow of tweets, so he basically proposed that if we type this hash mark and then a word, we can search on it then and we will have some means of structuring the content. He was not part of the Twitter development team, he was just a user. But this idea was so good that it was quickly picked up by the development team and so in the next version of the software, there was actually support for treating the hashtags separately. And then a whole ecology developed of third party services based on the idea of the hashtag. Which most people today would think: "Oh, Twitter. Yeah, that's the hashtag." But the point is it wasn't there when the service was launched; it was designed by users at a later stage and then it became part of the DNA of the service. So I think that's a pretty good example of how design continues after launch. Christin: Why is collaborative media a better explanation than for instance ”new media”, ”social media” or ”digital media”? Bo: Beside the obvious point, the collaborative part, it's much more action oriented, the idea that the kinds of media we're talking about have the potential to be used in a much more forceful way by many people. This is why we see it as a better term. Jonas: There is this sense in which broad participation for the many may be quite shallow, you could look at it as an inverted
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pyramid shape towards more specificity towards the bottom, with courses consisting of fewer people whom are more committed or engaged. The same platforms accommodate all kinds of positions on this spectrum, but I think you would agree Bo that we tend to be interested in examples that are slightly closer to the tip of this inverted pyramid, rather than the broad base. This is another reason we prefer not to use the term 'social media', because it has been kidnapped by marketing slang and public debate, so 'participation' is clicking the 'like' button, and you get advertising! That's nice of course, but not interesting from my point of view. I'm interested in examples closer to the tip here, where you have small social structures, with more energy, more shared tensions, ambitions, goals. At the same time as academics we're here to look critically at what is happening; not everything is great and wonderful but we try to have that "doing it" perspective in the book of course.
STRUCTURES Jonas: It's interesting to think about what's happening with the structures right now, rather than the terms. We have a lot of structure in society that is built around producers, producing mass-media and consumers consuming mass-media. As you know the challenges for newspapers for example are significant, so that poses the question "how can these structures transform?" and find new outlets for whichever skills and capabilities they bring to the table. I would say that the role of the broker or perhaps the curator might be a profitable or relevant role in 3 to 5 years for example. When people get tired of
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novelty, of being able to collect all the news they want through Google, and notice that they're still wasting an hour a day and still don't get a very good selection, people would realize: "maybe I should ask somebody who actually knows something about this". Maybe that is the time when journalists and editors will be able to commodify their expertise in selecting, presenting, packaging, balancing, doing all those things an editorial office does, and being able to start charging for it again. But they probably won’t be writing as much as they used to.
SCHOOLBOOKS & ENABLERS Christin: So we've talked a little about the facebook like and the twitter hashtag, but what other examples of collaborative media have you seen happen right now? Jonas: I can give you one example that I'm working on right now, it concerns textbooks and other study materials for high school, I work with a textbook publisher and together we build a platform that is supposed to be used in schools, in classrooms, during study, where teachers and students and publishers together create a more comprehensive, more up-to-date set of learning resources, and what we add, the secret source as it were, is a system that makes it actually possible to navigate and search in an effective way this very messy collection. So it's much better than telling the students to just "go on the internet" and you're actually able to see how this can work from a business point of view because there are some economic incentives that are fair I think for all parties.
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The point is that we are developing this together, so it’s me, some people from the publisher, a group of teachers from a school in Helsingborg. Together we're experimenting with this and we're going to roll a debate out with a bunch of students. So when you want to make something like this, that's not so obvious, you have to invest in those parts of the process, and you have to build things together with the people involved. You have to be there as a designer, not drawing every diagram or every screenshot, but facilitating the process over a longer time, to see what you can do to make it develop into meaningful tools for those that are participating. Bo: Another way of working with collaborative media is to do it in education, I teach in media communication studies here at Malmö University and the first year students work in groups to figure out how can you paint another picture of Malmö city using media in different ways and how to change the not always so fancy picture of what's happening here. Different kinds of apps of course but also more physical things. For instance, why not have a large screen at Malmö central station for people's notices, things that are both physical and concrete in a sense. Christin: using the physical space as a medium Jonas: and that's part of what we mean by 'media' here, a very broad way of looking at media.
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BO & JONAS'S Jonas Löwgren is Professor of Interaction Design at Malmö University, Sweden. Bo Reimer is a Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Malmö University. He is the co-author of The Politics of Postmodernity.
Read more: Medea Malmö University MIT Press (Collaborative Media Page)
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ACTION- ORIENTED TOOLBOX • Perhaps a mind-set thing: you have to view development processes in a different way. • There is a big potential for people with different competences to meet and do interesting things. Agonistic relationships: working not on the same terms, but working together • What tools do we need to break or intersect like-mindedness? • We should move from "like mind" to "unlike mind"
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Translation: When a group takes each others qualities for a combined result and lead to a better understanding of each others weaknesses and strengths
CO L L A B O R AT IO N : T H E N E W WAY S O F WO R K I N G I T
by Emma Estborn Head of Collaboration , Media Evolution
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It all started with a thought; an idea that was shared with others, tested and developed. It grew into actuality, and continues to evolve each day. We come from an industry where concepts such as hacking, crowd-funding and open source have 63
Results of the Digitizing Culture Workshop 26/4/2013 at Media Evolution photo: William Davis (Media Evolution / CC BY-SA)
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created a culture, a way to work and to relate to each other. Where the proven idea is, that when I share my ideas and creations, they grow bigger and better. That sharing is caring, and shared k nowledge doubles up. That the many few, collectively have the power to solve complex problems and challenges. And, that we also are able to challenge and hack existing structures; that we have the opportunities to work in new ways and by that enable completely new results. We’re in an industry where collaboration is actually making real innovation happen. When Media Evolution started to work across the media industries, the app-industry was unheard of. We wanted to try out the potential of creating meeting places where people from different media and creative industries could share ideas and co-create new business solutions. Today, the collaboration within the media industries has generated completely new competences and business sectors, whilst at the same time showing how digitization drives the development of other industries as well as society at large. But the collaboration also stands for something more, and something larger. A way of working and organizing, that in itself has made this development possible. With the digitization we see in society today, new techniques have enabled new behaviors. With users acting in new ways, it in turn changes how we can (and need to) continuously develop new solutions; by interaction with the marketplace and with the help of completing perspectives and competences. It has also enabled us working in new ways, in co-creation with each other and the surrounding community.
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Working as part of collaborative processes – open and cocreated – has evolved into a culture, a way to act in a part of our reality that affects how we are in all areas of life. For us, collaborative processes have made it possible to work in the gap between possibility and reality, with what yet doesn’t exist. To solve complex challenges, in business as well as society. Media Evolution engages in a multitude of different areas; collaborative city development, creative industries and the digitization of culture, as well as creating innovation platforms for the tourism industry, universities and packaging industry, to name a few. With a base in the culture of co-creation, evolved from the digital and creative industries, we design collaborative meeting places and processes where participants develop new solutions across sectors and industries; private and public sector, and quite often at the intersection between the two. What these processes all have in common, is the creation of what does not yet exist, by taking care of new digital solutions and the new cultures of working collaboratively. To develop products by co-creation with our users, is a methodology for us to do great things. We constantly test, develop, co-create and change. Media Evolution the Conference, that started off small scale in another format several years ago, has evolved by us constantly re-thinking what we do, why we do it and how. We have created the content in collaboration with the users, worked with the speakers as participants and co-creators, and enabled a unique product we had never been able to create on our own. With engagement and co-ownership, and by continuously
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re-thinking how we do it. Media Evolution City stands as a living example of how collaborative methods can create innovative, unique and sustainable solutions. Media Evolution City began as the idea of a physical meeting place some years ago, the idea was developed into a concept collaboratively, in a process that involved the media industry, city, region, architects and constructors. With the inhabitants of the house as co-creators, it became what it is today; a shifting and developing space. The way we work is shifting. For us, the way to move forward is to team up with many competences, get different views and perspectives, share to learn, and find out; what are the new ways of working it? Work collaboratively instead of competitively. With collaboration comes diversity, and that’s the best way to make sure we can solve challenges in new ways. However, in order to change the results, we need to start by questioning and changing the way we do it. The next spread contains some of the tools we've learnt along the way...
It’s in MEDIA EVOLUTION 's DNA to work this way, and something we like to apply to other sectors and industries. Are you curious on how to collaborate, we’d love to hear from you: emma@mediaevolution.se
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MEDIA EVOLUTION'S
Read more:Â Digital Culture Roundtable Media Evolution Competence Boost Media Evolution The Conference
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C O L L A B O R AT I O N T O O L B O X FIND AND START OFF WITH A UNIFYING QUESTION one where everyone has an interest and can contribute different competences and perspectives to solve, collectively. WORK IN AN OPEN AND CO-CREATIVE PROCESS everyone’s expertise contributes a significant piece to a larger puzzle. SHARED OWNERSHIP set the question free, and let people engage with you. BE OPEN TO NEW RESULTS COMING OUT OF THE PROCESS you might have to change the way you work, in order to make them happen.
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I M P R I N T #10 / DO IT TOGETHER / SUMMER 2013 Š 2013 by MEDI A EVOLU TION A B S t o r a Va r v s g a t a n 6 a MalmÜ 211 19 Sweden w w w.mediaevolution.se info@mediaevolution.se series editor CHRISTIN PERSSON c o - e d itor s t h i s i s s u e W I L L I A M DAV I S , E M M A E S T B OR N a r t d i r e c tor W I L L I A M DAV I S t r a n s l a t i o n s + p r o o f - r e a d i n g W I L LI A M D A V I S printing: CA Anderson / w w w.caa.se Licensed under Creative Commons by-nc-sa. More information: w w w.creativecommons.se Please circulate! Disclaimer : MEDI A EVOLU TION is fully responsible for getting the discussion about the future of media going. In this publication you can read different views on it. Let's move the world forward. ISBN 978-91-637-3676-6
DO IT TOGETHER! is published by MEDIA EVOLUTION. We strive to strengthen the growth of the media industries in Southern Sweden. We monitor what is happening in the media industries from a global perspective, circulating opportunities and business models that our members and the media industries at large can use in their development.
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w w w. m e d i a e v o l u t i o n . s e
P U B L I C A T I O N S Order online: http://www.mediaevolution.se/en/publications
#1 MORE FUNDING
How to use crowd-funding to engage people in your media project
#2 STRAIGHT TO INTERNET
Publishing and selling media products without the detours
#3 GAMIFICATION
Using game mechanics in to 'gamify' other fields
#4 APP APP APP
What to consider when creating an app for mobile phones
#5 BUILD ON OTHERS' WORK Building media services with content that already exists
#6 SHARING IS LEARNING On learning and growing as the benefits of sharing
#7 INTERNET OF THINGS
How media industries can benefit from a network of connected things
#8 ACCESS OVER OWNERSHIP
On the trend of wanting access to things instead of owning them
#9 EBOOKS & EBUCKS
How a shifting publishing landscape is creating new rules for books
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DO IT TOGETHER!